Energy secretary visits to reassure Butler Cleveland-Cliffs employees their jobs are safe

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm was in Pittsburgh visiting the Cleveland-Cliffs Butler Works facility that makes a special steel needed to make transformers.

In an exclusive sit-down interview with KDKA-TV, Granholm said she was in Pittsburgh to personally announce a modification in a proposed rule that will save 1,300 local jobs.

Employees at Cleveland-Cliffs Butler Works, the old AK Steel and Armoco facility, got good news on Monday.

“We have a new distribution transformer rule which preserves jobs, and that is very exciting,” Granholm said. 

In a sit-down interview at KDKA-TV, Granholm explained that a mandatory rule update raised concern about job elimination at America’s only grain-oriented electric steel producer — essential to make transformers. Both Congresssmen Chris Deluzio, a Democrat, and Mike Kelly, a Republican, sent Granholm a letter on the issue.

“We found a great path that allows for Cleveland-Cliffs Butler, in particular, to be competitive and have certainty going into the future and save 1,300 good paying jobs,” Granholm said. 

KDKA-TV’s Jon Delano: “You’re here to tell the workers, the steelworkers, that their 1,300 jobs will be preserved under the Biden administration?”

Granholm: “Absolutely.”

Delano: “So all the talk that these jobs would disappear under this proposed rule, not true?”

Granholm: “Not true.”

Granholm reiterated President Biden’s recent remarks in Pittsburgh to preserve steel jobs. She says the administration is committed to clean steel and providing millions of dollars to develop the technology to make steel greener while fighting to keep dirty steel like that made in China out of the U.S.

Jon Delano

Jon Delano is a familiar face on KDKA, having been the station’s political analyst since 1994. In September 2001, Jon joined KDKA full time as the Money & Politics Editor and this region’s only political analyst who covers national and local issues that affect hometown residents.